Tag: painting water

Painting Water on the Gouache Cormorant Painting – In an effort to make my paintings more friendly to doctor’s offices, nursing homes and hospitals, I decided to replace the poisonous vipers with a pair of cormorants. Black vipers were a great subject with all their shiny scales. However, a poisonous snake is never a good choice of subject matter for an up and coming wildlife artist. Like the viper, the cormorant is dark colored and the symmetry of their feathers will not be a lot different from snake scales.

The Great Cormorant

Water has been added in front of the mountains and in the foreground.

The Great Cormorant is a large duck species that dives underwater for very long periods of time to catch fish. If you’ve ever watched a cormorant, you have seen that they swim great distances when underwater. You’ll watch them go beneath the surface of the water. But they will resurface somewhere else very far away from where you saw them go below the surface of the water.

Painting Water

You can see the pencil drawing of the original black vipers in the foreground.

In the photos and videos linked here, you’ll see how I painted the water that appears in front of the mountains. For the water immediately in front of the mountains, I use a darkened color of the mountains. Next I use Jet Black to paint everywhere else on the board where water appears.

Painting the reflection of the mountain in the water using a Regency Gold #1 540 Series liner brush.About to mix water with the Windsor & Newton Jet Black gouache paint on a glass palette.Mixing water with the Windsor & Newton Jet Black gouache paint on a glass palette.Using a 1/4 Robert Simmons oval wash in this photo.Using the Robert Simmons 3/4 oval wash and Jet Black gouache paint.From this angle you can see the paint is still wet.